I made a card and a beaded bracelet for my mom!





I hope she likes them! I also made a cake- it's a new recipe, so I'll post it with a picture at my cooking blog tomorrow.

I finished my cousin's wedding present last night!



It really came out nice. I think it's a much better present than The Bride, which I gave up on. It took me thirty hours to do.

In other news, I went to a bell festival last weekend. It wasn't as good as last year's- the classes weren't interesting. I didn't go to any. The rehearsals and concert went really well, though. And I got a new bell shirt:



Hee, hee!

Only about half of the choir went this year. My nephew was a substitute for one of the players. He did really well.

I'm still tired from the weekend! And my new medicine is making me sick. I'm having a hard time adjusting to it. Yuck.

I found a cross stitched piece that I'd finished but had never done anything with last night. I finally decided to make a journal cover out of it:



Something I need to remember....

FYI, I print out all of my journal entries (usually exclude the memes) and paste them in books like these- it's like a diary and scrapbook in one!

Mom's garden is off to a good start! Here are some daffodils:



They're all over the place! The tulips will be here soon, too.

I got another one of my cross stitch pieces framed this week. They did a great job:



This one definitely gets entered in the needlework show!

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day was leaving town tonight, so my mom and I went to see it. I'm still amazed it actually played here...It was a very good movie. I think I already have a favorite for 2008! I need to find the book now (library doesn't own it, dammit). Amy Adams is so adorable. And there were cute boys in it, too! I'll have a longer review in my movie blog tomorrow, I'm too tired tonight.

Argh! I wanted to spend my Borders gift card on the new Torchwood novels, but they don't have them in stock yet. My store is always a week behind. Oh, well, I did find a nice new cross stitching book. And I have The Wings of the Dove and Mansfield Park to read first, anyway...

Speaking of cross stitching, I gave up on The Bride, and selected a simpler piece for my cousin's wedding. I really bit off more than I could chew with that one...I'm disappointed in myself. :(

The Maundy Thursday service went well tonight, even though the choir really wasn't that well prepared. We sang one of my favorite pieces, the Kyrie from Schubert's Mass in G.

When I got home, I managed to finish my big project- Ivy. She turned out better than I thought she would. So many beads! Took me 50 hours to do...and about ten of those hours were beading!



Haven't gotten around to watching the latest Torchwood episode (though I have seen THAT scene...GUH!!! Drool...), and I missed Lost (no spoilers, please). No time! I'm going to spend my whole weekend cooking, at church, or at my sister's!

I didn't finish my cross stitch piece this week. But I'm proud of the progress I've made, so it's at my blog:

http://kirastitch.blogspot.com/

I've updated my T.V. and movie blogs this week, too.

http://kiratvrants.blogspot.com/

http://kiramovies.blogspot.com/

Not sure where I'm going to hang it.



Mwhaaahahaha. Just what I need for my bad moods! It took me three hours to do.

Still sick as a dog.

Nice time for me to get a cold and sore throat. I can't go to choir tonight. I must get better before Saturday. That's when I'm going to the National Cathedral to sing! We're singing very hard music. I don't think most of the choir members can do it. Fortunately, we're singing with about 400 other people...Anyone in the D.C. area is welcome to come to the service- I think it's at 3:00. It should be lovely.

I think I will go to the meet up next Saturday. It should be a lot of fun. I've only been to D.C. once since the last meet (for Spamalot). I love going to D.C., and I've been planning to visit the Spy Museum anyway.

To those who read my locked entry- I think everything is said and done now, so I'll nuke it in case it gets in the wrong hands. :p Thanks for the kind words, I'm going to be staying put for now. The Meet-up forum is a good place to mod, and I'd hate to leave the BR.

Lost is back tomorrow night! Yay! Happy dance! Running commentary at TrekBBS! (I knew there was a reason for me to stick around!) Eight whole episodes...then that's it because of the writer's strike. House only gets two more new episodes this season (last night's was pretty good). Thank God for Torchwood- eleven more new episodes..

Speaking of Torchwood, I'm really looking forward to next week's episode, To the Last Man. (Of course, I'll probably see it tomorrow ) It's Tosh-centric, yay. We don't get enough of her. And the guest star is Anthony Lewis, older brother of Matthew from the Harry Potter films. He's just as cute, and I think he might even be a better actor. We'll see after this episode. All those good looks and talent in one family, it's not fair! :p

I think I will make my goal of reading 50 books in 2008 with no problem. I'm about to finish Wide Sargasso Sea. That brings my January total to five: The others were Atonement, Kite Runner, Border Princes (a Torchwood novel, and it was so-so), and 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. Next up is Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter- someone recommended it years ago and I'm finally getting to it! My cross stitching has been suffering a bit. I'm really getting frustrated with The Bride. And I can't finish Ivy until I get the missing threads and beads...I'm going to pick a couple of one-nighters to do to clear my head. I always feel better about the big projects after I've finished something small.

...I bawled all the way through the last pages of Atonement. God, what a sad ending...and what a great book. I need to read some more of Ian McEwan's stuff now! I was supposed to go see the movie today, but my mom was sick and couldn't go. I don't like going to movies by myself, especially sad ones.

I have a whole bunch of books checked out from the library, and even more on hold. My goal is to read fifty books this year.

Speaking of sad stuff, I started taking down Christmas decorations. God, I hate the end of the season. I'm doing it as slowly as possible. I'm helping Mom with a big project- we're cataloging all of her Christmas ornaments. I'm going to group them by theme or type (glass balls, toys, Santas, etc.), take photos, and write up a bit of history about them. Not every single ornament, because she and Dad have well over 400, but just a general idea of what they have and the stories behind them. I've already done my own tree. Not a lot of history, but I realized that I have nearly 30 Star Trek ornaments!
More stuff behind the cut... ( Read more... )

I had a terrific holiday. The candlelight service at church was lovely as usual. I sang a solo and in a trio, and Mom thought it was the best she'd heard me sing in years! My voice must really have finally come back.

Christmas dinner was at my sister's house like always and it was great. Her tree was really beautiful this year.

 Sam got an X Box and Guitar Hero III to go with it. He spent most of the day playing. I didn't even try to play. It looks hard!

I got a lot of great presents this year. A lot more than I asked for- especially considering that I already got the big present- Spamalot!! My sister surprised me with a bottle of Vera Wang Princess, a perfume I'd casually mentioned liking (we were at Macy's shopping for our dad at the time). *grins*  I really cleaned up. Mom loved her necklace, and everyone loved the stitching I did for them.

Lots of pictures behind the cut- some are large.

Another year, another successful run of The Messiah. My sister thought it was the best we've ever done it. I know I sang better than usual last night. Katie may not be directing again next year (she's really tired!), but I'll sing in it, anyway!

I think the Christmas season has officially begun for me!

I've been almost too busy to do any cross stitching. I did manage to finish a card:



I still have to do my mother's present. It's simple, though. Then I have one more card to do.

I've been so busy that I forgot I had a finished cross stitch piece to show off!



This is for my sister, because she's directing The Messiah. I was hoping to get it done and framed before our last performance, but that's next week. I'll just have to give it to her as a Christmas present.

Wow. I'm still full from yesterday. LOL!

Here's yet another ornanment:



I have two more to go in this series. Some I'm going to have to do twice!

I finished the Thanksgiving Harvest Fairy last night!

Big pictures under the cut...

It's time to work on Christmas! I'm just working on ornaments and cards right now. This is the third Mary Engelbreit ornament I've finished:




I have a bunch more to do.

It felt so good to skip choir on Wednesday. If Christmas wasn't coming, I'd skip another week. But the choir is already behind schedule.

The recording for the CD is finished. Ugh. Thursday's session was a waste of time- we did a piece with the praise team. Their instruments drowned us out. The leader was nice, though- he really tried to work with us. But the guitars and drums were just too loud...

Yesterday wasn't too bad. The bells did two pieces. One was perfect, the other had to be recorded three times. I'm not sure any takes were good enough to use. One of our ringers got so frustrated that she actually quit once we were finished. She wasn't a good player anyway. The final two pieces we did were with all of the kids. They were so cute. I think those numbers will be the best on the CD.

I hope we never do this again! It was hard work, and we probably won't make any money off of it. The performance copyright fees alone are going to devour any profit we might make...

I'm skipping choir this week. I think we all earned a break. Besides, I have a Halloween party to go to!

Tonight is the first rehearsal for the Messiah. I hope there's a big turnout this year.

I was busy most of the weekend because of choir. But I did manage to do two little cross stitch pieces!

Under the cut! 

Just finished a card for my cousin Alison's wedding, which is next month:



That's the last card I have to do until Christmas!

I  just finished her birthday present. I think she'll like it- it's garden-themed.

Big pic behind the cut...